Packing clothes for moving is often more formidable than making the heavy furniture ready. It's due to this only that many people leave packing their clothes for the last few minutes. If you are relocating, the most arduous task for you would be to decide the best way to pack clothes for moving.
A major challenge for you would be to pack your clothes without forming any creases, and keep them clean, and keep your clothes organized. However, if you want to avoid such challenges, perhaps hiring professional movers would be your first choice.
If you want to take up the challenge and pack by yourself, here we have good strategies for you that will make your move easier:
Declutter your closet before the moving day
You must ensure that your outfits are clean and stain-free before you pack them for moving. Also, consider washing your wardrobe items and drying them completely before you fold them or put them on hangers. Avoid packing flawed seasonal or stained clothes, until you get them washed or repaired. Finally, you must examine your entire wardrobe and remove items that you might not want to take with you.
Here we have a few packing tips to get started:
- Consider organizing your clothes in order of the season or family members.
- Ensure you create piles of related items and align each moving box with the magnitude of the pile.
- You should discard clothes you don’t use anymore and avoid carrying unnecessary things. Possibly, if the clothes are in good condition, you can even sell or donate them.
- Keep the seasonal outfits separately that you won’t require immediately.
Tip: We would recommend a garage sale only if the profit you will generate will be worth your effort and time. Also, you must be ready to host the garage sale online or through vintage stores.
Select the clothes you will wear on a moving day
Here’s what you might need to do to make your packing process easier:
- Keep the clothes you or your family members will wear on a moving day separately and pack them into a personal kit.
- Make sure you choose outfits that would be comfortable for you as per the weather of the places involved on a moving day.
- Ensure to keep a pair of clothes aside in case of sudden weather changes like unexpected rainfall during the move.
- It would be a good idea to set aside a few towels, pajamas, or underwear for taking a shower immediately after reaching your new home.
Tip: We suggest you keep a few extra pairs of clothes for changing as it might take one or two days for your belongings to reach your new destination. Moreover, you need to keep your duffel bags ready and pack clothes into them as and when needed.
Double your moving boxes
Regardless of how light your clothes are, they will get heavy soon. It would be worthwhile to use medium or small moving boxes and avoid lifting heavy boxes on a moving day. Still, if you need to use large moving boxes, consider doubling it up and applying a dual layer of packing tape at its base. If you skip this step, you can scatter the clothes across the road and even rip them off.
Tips to categorize your clothes
Grouping your clothes will assist you in packing them smoothly and finding specific clothes after you relocate to a new destination. Of course, you can skip this step if you are in a hurry, but keeping your clothes organized will help you make your move smoother.
Here are some tricks to organize your clothes better:
- Seasonal clothes - With this, you can quickly find and unpack all your clothes and avoid juggling with seasonal clothing, for example, summer clothes when it's chilly outside or winter coats when there's a heatwave.
- Fabric - Cotton or natural clothes might get wrinkled and you will have to iron them after moving to a new city or house. Simply, you can put them on hangers and place a clothing bag over them, this will protect your clothes from getting wrinkled. If you are taking woolen garments with you, most likely they will consume a lot of space, we suggest you order a few pairs of extra boxes. Moreover, if you have synthetic clothes, just pack them as you would pack any other outfit and place them on top of each other. This is possible because polyester or synthetic outfits won't get wrinkled.
- Requirement - Consider your needs before you pack your clothes. For example, you need to pack your casual outfits at a place that's easily accessible as compared to the formal clothing that you would need less often. You should do this much in advance as this will save you time and will reduce your difficulties.
Tip: In case of a wedding dress or other emotional items, we suggest you pack them into cardboard boxes, wardrobe boxes, or even garment boxes.
- Size - You can put all small items inside a single moving box and pack all your long outfits together. Don't forget to label your belongings if you are mixing various items in a single box. You can use military techniques to fold your clothes and make use of compression bags or vacuum bags and condense your outfits into them. This will offer more protection to your clothes than any trash bag. You may pack any non- hanging clothes in cardboard boxes or duffel bags and pack your hanging outfits in wardrobe boxes or garment boxes.
Tips to efficiently fold or roll your clothes
If you roll your clothes properly, you will save considerable space and reduce the number of moving boxes you might need for the move. Overall, this will make your unpacking process easy as well.
How do you fold your clothes?
- The best technique to pack your non-changing clothes is by folding them. Here we have a few techniques that will help you fold clothes efficiently:
- You need a flat surface like a table, bed, or floor to fold your outfits properly.
- Begin folding a pant from their waist and smoothen them using your hands.
- Roll the pant into half such that the legs touch each other and once again make the pant smooth with your hands.
- Make sure you roll the pants, around one-third from the top. Also, you need to make the pant smooth before and after each fold you make. This will help you prevent your clothes from wrinkling.
- Repeat the process till your pant becomes a flat square.
- Start folding your t-shirt by smoothing it first and then rolling it in half, from its neck to the bottom.
- Ensure you fold each sleeve inward and roll each shirt towards the bottom. Leave only sufficient space to roll the open end of the shirt over the fold.
Hacks to pack your clothes
Don’t take out clothes from the drawer
- Make sure you leave the clothes inside your dresser's drawer as it is and secure both the drawers and their doors. This will prevent it from opening during the move and scattering all your clothes.
- However, this technique would work efficiently only if you were hiring professional movers who are experienced in moving heavy furniture.
- If you find it safe, you can easily detach the drawers, secure them with plastic, and consider moving them separately.
Pack the hanging clothes
- If you are making a local move, you can stack all your hanging clothes in a cart or by draping them over the box in the hanger itself.
- Make sure you pack all the hangers together and move them into a group of five to fifteen.
- Envelope each group separately with a sheet or garbage and prevent any accumulation of dust and dirt.
Seal your seasonal clothes
If you want to pack your seasonal outfits for the short term, we suggest you vacuum-seal them. This will help you save space and provide air circulation while storing them for a long time.
Pack your shoes and delicate separately
- Don’t pack your shoes or exquisites with other clothing and prevent damage.
- If you are packing silk outfits or other exquisite materials, make sure you wrap them in tissue paper that would work as a protective layer.
Prepare clothing bundles
- If you pack your clothes in bundles, it would be easier for you to move them in and out of the moving boxes, keeping them organized.
- Place a jacket or any other large item over a flat surface. You can place a small item on top of this big item and so on.
- Wait until the jacket is full and then wrap it around the other garments to form a bundle.
- Finally, you can put these bundles inside a cardboard box and make sure you put the heaviest piece at the base.
Arrange for a suitcase for moving your wardrobe
Roll your clothes into small bundles and pack your suitcase as if you are packing for a vacation. We suggest you apply this technique for packing your most frequently used clothes.
Tips to pack shoes for moving
Your shoes need to go through a lot, here’s what you need to do to pack them efficiently:
- Make sure you stuff each shoe with socks or packing paper to keep them in shape.
- Pack each shoe separately with packing paper and avoid scuffing.
- Check how many pairs of shoes you have and pack them accordingly in medium or small moving boxes.
- To protect your shoes, pack them from sole to sole or toe to heel.
- Ensure you keep the heavy pair of shoes at the bottom and the lighter ones on top of it. This will prevent your snow boots from crushing your sandals.
If you can’t, take all your clothes with you, we suggest you hire storage units and keep your clothes safely there. Moreover, you should consider packing your clothes for storage first and then go ahead packing those clothes that you need to take with you.
By now we have discussed several packing tips and hacks that should make you ready for moving. After you are done packing your clothes like a professional, your challenges will reduce to a considerable extent, and you can proceed towards completing other tasks on your moving checklist.